Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Since Dawkins became fashionable I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says: "We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplis…
If evolution explains everything, it explains nothing.
Is There Anything Good About Men?
141–150 of 237 posts
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
This wikipedia entry only very briefly touches on some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_signi... But saying only that To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No sentence describing the British empire should start with "To make a long story short".
> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't…
Thats complete bullshit
1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007
2)So they were not just content with taking all the money....they also wanted to starve people to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India
3)The british rule was very racist too.Indians were not allowed to travel or dine in the same places as the British.They called us "dirty kaffirs".
4)Even when these motherfuckers were leaving coz they got fucked in WW2 and did not have any more money to rule India(by then the british had sucked all the money from India anyways) they seperated the country into India and Pakistan based on religion."Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
As Assistant Secretary to the Treasury he was placed in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population". He described the famine as "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be t…
Right, no-one was disagreeing that the British did many bad things in their colonies. But the point lionhearted is making is that they did more good, overall. Picking a specific example of bad doesn't counter that argument effectively.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've never seen a dog overcome instinct? It's not a uniquely human ability.
sliverstorm's point is valuable and it is annoying to see it ignored. Dogs and other pets routinely overcome instinct to win favour by their human masters. And what are humans but pets of society? It pisses me off when people don't concede that they were wrong and promise to do better next time. jordan0day, admit that your simplistic argument was flawed, and vow to re-examine your assumptions. Damn but 99% of argumen…
In this case, we have saturn exemplifying a pure animalistic instinct of rage. You being pissed off is not an argument that helps the conversation.
Humans are not pets of society because humans are a part of society. You're trying to personalize society, in a similar way that religious freaks try to personalize the universe.
In reality, society is better understood as an emergence of many tribes working together in an economic model. Let me dumb it down:
There is a tribe of programmers. They have their own rituals, their own ceremonies, even their own drugs that they like to take (yay Mountain Dew). They are very good at controlling computers.
Then there is a tribe of people who make pizza. They are good at making pizza, really good. Well, better than most programmers anyway. They eat pizza a lot, and their life revolves around making pizza, eating pizza, talking about how different pizzas are awesome or how they suck.
Now first tribe is all like "hey, we need pizza" so they go to the second tribe and ask that tribe to make them some pizza in return for herding pizzamen's freaky computers that just get out of control all the time.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't…
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just…
Are you a Bond villain?
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just…
>Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
This wikipedia entry only very briefly touches on some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_signi... But saying only that To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No sentence describing the British empire should start with "To make a long story short".
> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't…
When discussing Alexander the Great we talk about how he spread Hellenistic culture and gave rise to western civilization. It doesn't turn into a flame war about how many Persians he killed, or how many slaves he owned.
If we judge historical cultures by modern standards none of them would come out smelling like roses.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just…
>Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
However economics is not a zero sum game. I'm not adversely affected if Asia's economies grow. In fact, I'd love to see them succeed. More wealth anywhere is good for free people everywhere; it give's me more people to trade with.
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just…
>Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
Re: Is There Anything Good About Men?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history. Thats complete bullshit 1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007 2)So they were not just…
>Very soon they will pay for all this!! Are you a Bond villain?
You've completely forgotten about automation. Within a generation robotics will make low cost labor obsolete. We won't need factories of Chinese workers to build our products; We'll have factories full of robots.
Also, I don't really care who has the most power. I don't care if America has the largest military in the world. I only want our military to protect our borders and police shipping lanes.
If China becomes more powerful than the west and my standard of living increases thanks to technology, I don't care. The only thing to worry about is chinese military intervention, but even if they have a significantly more powerful military our nuclear deterrents will prevent them from directly harming us.